I own a few “recent” Zebralight that are very limited in terms of battery length. On Zebra website, the description limits the length from 65.0mm to 65.2mm. They do sell NCR18650GA on their website which is supposed to be 65,1 mm according to their description. I live in Canada so it’s hard to order from Zebralight and even harder to ship lithium batteries to Canada due to some rules here. It ends up being very expensive. I plan to purchase the NCR18650GA from a Canadian retailer. My concern is that the only length I can find for this battery is 65.3mm. Will it really fail in this light ? Has anyone else tried this cell in a “new” Zebralight. Or is the description elsewhere in the world wrong for the Panasonic/Sanyo NCR18650GA? Thanks.
My Panasonic NCR18650GA cells measure 65.1mm on the money. If my photo ever uploads to imgur, I’ll edit it in here.
The Sanyo and Panasonic versions are different, so make sure you confirm the correct one.
My Sanyo GA Red from Japan is 65.2mm
65.3 is the max allowable for the cells to pass inspection before sale. 65.1 is the norm. This is true for either the Panny or Sanyo wrappers for stock cells. Most other major brand oem cells are the same - Sony (Murata) and Samsung list a max of 65.2. All my Sony are 65.0 on the money and my Samsung 35E and 30Q are all 65.1. I just got several Sanyo (red unmarked wrap, blue ring) from Liion Wholesale that were made in May 2021 and they all measure 65.1. I have two that were made in 2018 and two green Panny marked wraps that are also 65.1 although I think the green were more like 65.16 (on Mitutoyo digital and accounting for the kapton tape).
It’s hard to imagine the light could or would be made with that tight of a tolerance but stick with oem flat tops and you should be fine. Maybe ZL was just trying to communicate that protected cells wouldn’t fit (which would add 3mm-5mm). I’ve never seen these with a “raised dome” top but you can find them with standard button tops…skip those.
Canadian here, you’re much better off ordering Li-ion cells from somewhere like 18650batterystore or Illumn than any of the lousy Canadian sources. From 18650batterystore you can get 4 NCR18650GAs for about $40 USD shipped, and the price per cell goes down from there since there are fixed shipping tiers. Grab some 21700s while you’re at it.
I was about to buy from 18650canada.ca. Any experience there ?
I did checked Illum, but the shipping and USD/CAD convertion was giving high price. I will have a look at 18650batterystore.
I try to order a few NCR18650GA and a few 18350 (keeppower or vapcell) at the same place for an upcomming D4V2.
Thanks for all you valuable comments !
NightTime, if you want to order from Illumn (great place!) they give us a small discount. Enter “blfuser” at checkout and it’s about a 5% discount.
Thanks. Well noted !
If you only need one or maybe two 18650s then I’d just grab them from your local vape store. Most carry Samsung 30Q for around $13-15 CAD. Google Maps “vape store” then check their websites to see what they have in stock and price. I’ve done a weight, internal resistance, and capacity check on the 30Qs I’ve purchased and all have been legit cells.
If you want more than a few cells then I’d get them shipped from the places recommended by the others above.
My local vape shop must be inferior. I called them once to ask about a couple of common 18650 cells and they acted like they had no idea what I was talking about. :person_facepalming:
Same here. Before opening this thread, I went to SAIL where I found only one 18650. It was a button top. After that I went to my local Vap Shop. The vendor showed me the only 18650 model they had… at a distance. I asked to handle the battery to determine what they had for sale and the vendor looked at me as if I was abusing my customer status.
- Vendor: “It’s the standard”
- Me: “There are several standards in this type of battery: flat top, button top, protected, rechargeable USB…”
- Vendor: …silence…
- Me: Have a nice day.
After a few “View my cart” test from different recommended websites, I ended up buying at 18650batterystore.com. The BLFUSER coupon did not work at Illumn, but 5% was not enough to beat 18650batterystore prices. After shipping, USD-CAD exchange and PayPal commission I payed 74,73 CAD for 2x 18350 and 4x 18650 (Sanyo-NCR18650GA). Not cheap.